Legal drug fatalities far outpace illegal drug deaths

Monday

Nov 20, 2017 at 2:06 PMNov 20, 2017 at 2:06 PM

In Florida last year, the number of deaths attributed to opioid use rose 35 percent, to 5,725, according to a 2016 annual report compiled by the state’s medical examiners and published by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The number represents a 40 percent increase from 2015 to 2016.

TOM McLAUGHLIN @TomMnwfdn

Drugs, both legal and illegal, continue to take a deadly toll on the country, the state and Northwest Florida.

In Florida last year, the number of deaths attributed to opioid use rose 35 percent, to 5,725, according to a 2016 annual report compiled by the state’s medical examiners and published by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The number represents a 40 percent increase from 2015 to 2016.

Overall, the number of deaths attributed to drugs increased 22 percent for the year, the report said.

Deaths caused by heroin, which have been increasing every year since 2010-11, jumped in Florida this year by 30 percent and Okaloosa County continues to rank among the highest per capita population for heroin fatalities.

Among the 67 Florida counties, just Okaloosa and Palm Beach attributed between 10 and 15 deaths per 100,000 population to heroin for 2016. Across the state, the number of deaths caused by heroin overdose increased from 733 to 952.

Deaths caused by fentanyl, a synthetic opiate often mixed with heroin, increased by 97 percent in 2016, causing 1,390 deaths. The CDC reports fentanyl is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

But again the leading cause of deaths among Floridians, the state’s medical examiners said, were prescription drugs. A total of 3,550 people died with at least one prescription drug in their system that was identified as the cause of death.

“Prescription drugs continued to be found more often than illicit drugs, both as the cause of death and present at death,” the report said. “Prescription drugs account for 61 percent of all drug occurrences in this report when ethyl alcohol is excluded.”

While more populated Okaloosa County has been seeing more opioid deaths for several years, the scourge of drug addiction is being felt in more rural Santa Rosa and Walton counties as well.

“We are dealing with multiple deaths,” said Walton County Sheriff Mike Adkinson.

The Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office recorded cases involving heroin 14 times in 2015 compared tothree the year before. There were 10 overdoses and one fatal overdose.

Last year, according to unofficiall statistics provided by the Sheriff's Office, there were 15 heroin overdoses, with seven of them proving fatal.

Adkinson said a statistic not kept by the state's medical examiner, and often overlooked toll caused by drug addiction, is suicide.

“What the numbers in the report don’t capture, it doesn’t take into account the suicides,” he said. “In my experience a lot of suicides, a very large majority, are emotional distress compounded with addiction issues.”

In both Okaloosa and Walton counties, emergency personnel have begun using Narcan, a substance that is used in emergency situations to reverse the effects of an overdose. There would be more heroin-related deaths if it were not being employed, Adkinson said.

“It’s clearly saving people,” he said.

Narcan and other opioid antagonists help counteract the impact opioids have on the brain. They “do not completely ‘fix’ the problem the drug ingested has caused,” said Okaloosa Sheriff’s Office Capt. Mike Card.

“Has it helped? Absolutely,” Card said. “But it also depends on how much opioid they ingested, and how long they have been in crisis or without life saving measures. For instance, if they have not been breathing, or heart beating for a while, there is going to be damage that may be unrecoverable due to oxygen deprivation.”

While a shortage of proper treatment centers continues to plague Northwest Florida, the law enforcement community is stepping in where it can to help addicts.

In Walton County, a mental health specialist has been brought in to work at the county jail dealing with mental health and addiction issues at the same time,” Adkinson said. It’s a pilot program that will be charted as part of validating its impact.

“If it doesn’t work, we’re prepared to do something different,” he said.